Battle of Maidenhead

The Battle of Maidenhead was a skirmish action of the American Revolutionary War that occurred on 4 January 1777 near present-day Lawrence Township in Mercer County, New Jersey, then known as Maidenhead. The battle occurred when Captain Nathaniel Black's militia and allied Huron tribesmen ambushed a detachment of Hessians on the outskirts of Trenton shortly after the battle of Princeton, and the patriots killed all of the Hessian mercenaries.

Background
On 26 December 1776, General George Washington and an army of 2,400 Continental Army troops crossed the Delaware River and won a astounding victory against the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton. In the following days, the Hessians under Carl von Donop abandoned Burlington and Bordentown, and the Hessians pulled back from the border with Pennsylvania. Charles Cornwallis' British army of 1,200 troops moved to attack the patriots in Trenton after seeing campfires in the town, but these fires were lit by the Continentals before they moved out of town in order to fool Cornwallis. The Continentals proceeded to ambush his rear guard under Charles Mawhood and defeat the British in the Battle of Princeton on 3 January 1777, winning another great victory against the British. Cornwallis and his army returned to Trenton, where they set up a base centered at the capitol building there. In addition, Colonel Sven Kuechler led a detachment of Hessian troops in between the two cities, with the Hessians possessing two cannon and around twenty jaegers. The town of Princeton lent the Americans their aid, and Captain Nathaniel Black built up an army sufficient enough to attack Trenton and take the town.

Hessian ambush
The patriots and Kuechler's detachment met between Princeton and Trenton near Lawrence Township in Mercer County, which was called "Maidenhead" in the eighteenth century. The patriot force consisted of both militia under Washington and allied Huron tribesmen from the Allentown area of Monmouth County, and the patriots succeeded in ambushing the Hessians. Despite the Hessians' advantage of having artillery, the patriots managed to take out the Hessian guns before engaging the jaegers. Washington and Captain Black led their men from the front, and Black suffered some non-threatening wounds in the battle. The result would be the destruction of the small Hessian force, and the Americans were able to move on to Trenton.

"Second Battle of Trenton"
The second part of the battle can be called the "Second Battle of Trenton" with some accuracy, although the action was really a continuation of the skirmish at Maidenhead. The British recruited some Japanese mercenary ronin from the local saloon, but the patriot militiamen overwhelmed any forces that Cornwallis sent to fight them. The Americans would burn down the vital buildings that Cornwallis controlled, and the destruction of his capitol led to the Americans winning another victory.